Home, My Minimart
A waste collection from 150 families reveals their shopping and eating habits
From stash to trash? With more homes looking like this, managing the kitchen inventory becomes crucial in reducing household food waste.
RESTAURANT consultant and food writer Guy Hoh, 37, shops once a week to make sure there is sufficient food at home in case of emergencies like a quarantine.
His stock includes three kilos of pasta, 10 kilos of rice, 10 tins of fish and meat, 15 to 30 portions of dried and frozen vegetables and fruits, 10 litres of juice and 10 litres of soya milk – enough to last his family of six for two weeks.
And if that is not enough, he has a good range of dark chocolate, cheeses and 70 types of wine that will put liquor sellers to shame.
To prevent his food from turning bad, he makes sure the food is finished before replenishing the inventory.Unfortunately, few people practise that.
Check out the trash: Main components of households’ food waste were unwanted food parts like fruit peels, vegetable stems, eggshells, bones, as well as leftovers like gravy and rice.
Overstocking often leads to food wastage when we forget about the can of baked beans we bought last year.
In the UK, a comprehensive household food waste study by the Waste and Resource Action Programme showed that the bulk of food waste in the country was generated by households.
The report revealed that 90 per cent of UK consumers are unaware of the food they throw. Individuals who believed their household had no food waste were found to be tossing away 240 grammes of food every day, amounting to 88 kilos a year.
Unfortunately, there are no studies on household food waste in Singapore.
To get an inkling of it, we collected a day’s worth of food waste from 150 families last December.
Over two weeks, we trawled Housing Development Board flats, condominiums and landed property houses at Serangoon and Sembawang in property agent-style to get families to separate their food waste for our analysis.
There, we handed each family a red plastic bag (the standard size given out by supermarkets) to keep their food trash for our collection the next evening.
That must be tough, collecting waste from door to door, some said in mock sympathy. Others rose in defense to assert that they harbour almost zero food waste at home.
“We’re eating out almost every other day this week. Perhaps you could come back next Wednesday,” said teacher Audrey Gan, 40.
Check out the trash: Main components of households’ food waste were unwanted food parts like fruit peels, vegetable stems, eggshells, bones, as well as leftovers like gravy and rice.
In an information sheet given to participating families, we stated: some examples of food waste include leftovers, inedible or unwanted food parts (vegetable stems, fruit skins, seeds, meat fat and bones etc.) and expired products.
Unwanted food parts such as fruit peels, vegetable parts, eggshells, bones and leftovers like rice and gravy formed the bulk of the waste.
Taking the average weight of food waste collected from each family divided by the average household size, the average household food waste per individual was 126 grammes.
Figures from the National Environment Agency showed that food waste totalled 570 million kilos in 2008.
Assuming Singapore’s 2008 population to be 4.9 million and the food waste collected from the 150 families to be representative, this would mean household waste had comprised 36 per cent, or one-third, of the average food waste accumulated by an individual in Singapore.
ARTICLE RESOURCES:
• Reducing solid waste in supermarkets
• People & food waste in Sydney
• Understanding food labels
“Figures from the National Environment Agency showed that food waste totalled 570 million kilos in 2008.” —> i was going to throw away my half eaten sandwich but after reading this statistic i think i’ll make myself finish it.
Good post! I pray this evil ash cloud will go away. My cousin is stuck in Greece and she’s running out of cash. I heard the volcanic ash will be staying for at least another 3 weeks but I don’t know if I should believe it. Does anyone know if it’s really true?